TEN TOP TIPS FOR TEACHING 
WITH NEW MEDIA 
(20092010) 
PRESENTS

New Media, New Tools  

and a New Educational Resource 


EDUTOPIA 
WANTS TO HELP you make the most of 
the latest technologies and innovative ways to use them 
as we settle into the 200910 school year, so weve put 
together this brand-new resource for you containing ten 
of the best tips and resources on how to bring new media 
into the classroom. 

Full of succinct and practical ways to prepare our students 
for 21st-century success, this guide will educate and inspire 
you to embrace the new-media frontier and embark on a 
new learning adventure. From Breaking the Digital Ice to 
Working Better, Together each tip provides succinct and 
practical ways to turn your classroom into an environment 
for learning with new media. And each tip includes a wealth 
of Web sites and additional resources to help you deliver 
the relevant and meaningful education all students deserve. 

Suzie Boss 

Journalist and Edutopia blogger 
edutopia.org/suzie-boss 

visit edutopia.org 


#1 

Break the Digital Ice 

#2 

Find Your Classroom 
Experts 

#3 

Get Off to a Good Start 

#4 

Think Globally 

#5 

Find What You Need 

#6 

Make Meaning from 
Word Clouds 

#7 

Work Better, Together 

#8 

Open a Back Channel 

#9 

Make It Visual 

#10 

Use the Buddy System 


Break the 
Digital Ice 


ICEBREAKERS ARE A TIME-HONORED TRADITION for starting the new 
school year. Scavenger hunts, name games, and other introductory activities help teachers 
and students get acquainted so they can start building a positive learning community. Give 
this important classroom tradition a 21st-century makeover by integrating digital tools. 

VoiceThread (voicethread.com) is one example of an online resource that can help you 
and your students get better acquainted. VoiceThread allows users to combine photographs 
or other visuals with written or audio comments. This collaborative, Web-based tool is easy 
to use, which means students will be spending class time actively participating rather than 
awaiting instructions. 

For elementary school students, introduce VoiceThread with a whole-class activity. Using 
a projector or an interactive whiteboard, share a short digital album to introduce yourself. 
Invite students to record their own audio comments in response to your prompts. Then 
expand the activity by adding photos of students. Invite them to add comments to help you 
learn more about themand each other. 

With secondary school students, consider using a VoiceThread prompt to encourage goal 
setting for the new school year. What do students look forward to doing in your class? 
What interests them about this subject? What image can they share that captures how they 
are feeling at the start of the new school year? Students individual VoiceThreads can be 
useful artifacts for reflection later in the year. Add your own encouraging comments to their 
digital albums, modeling how to give positive feedback. 

By introducing a collaborative tool like VoiceThread early in the year, youll be letting 
students know that your classroom is a place for productive conversation where everyones 
voice matters. 

Related Resources: 

....100 Ways to Use VoiceThread in 
Education (voicethread.com/#q. 
b26224.i145977), a teacher-created 
VoiceThread about VoiceThread. 

....VoiceThread Extends the Classroom 
with Interactive Media Albums 
(edutopia.org/voicethreadinteractive-
multimedia-albums), 
from Edutopia.org. 

....VoiceThread for Educators 
(voicethread.ning.com), a 
social-networking site for teachers, 
with more than 880 members. 

....In a short video (secctv.org/video 
/?p=461), Gail Desler, a technology-
integration specialist for the Elk Grove 
Unified School District, in Elk Grove, 
California, explains the power of using 
VoiceThread in a history classroom. 

3 TEN TOP TIPS FOR TEACHING WITH NEW MEDIA EDUTOPIA.ORG 


4 TEN TOP TIPS FOR TEACHING WITH NEW MEDIA EDUTOPIA.ORG 
TIP #2 Find Your Classroom 
Experts 
MANY OF TODAYS DIGITAL KIDS spend their free time producing videos, 
posting to social-networking sites, and text messaging their friends. You can take advantage 
of their technical know-how in the classroom, too, if you know where to look for help. 
Early in the school year, survey your students to find out about their digital smarts: Who are 
your classroom experts when it comes to graphic design, podcasting, or video editing? Who 
knows how to make animations? Any Teen Second Life experts in the group? Do students 
own any gear they would be willing to share for a special project? 
Cast an even wider net for technical expertise by surveying parents. Even better, have 
your students survey their family members. Dont overlook other experts in your school 
community. After-school technology clubs, as well as instructional-technology staff, media 
specialists, and other tech-savvy colleagues, are all likely sources of expertise. 
Online survey tools like Survey Monkey (surveymonkey.com) make information 
gathering quick and easy. Many online survey tools offer free basic accounts. Once you 
have gathered the raw data, create a spreadsheet so you can easily identify your classroom 
experts when the need for specialized help arises. Better yet, ask your resident spreadsheet 
gurus to help you. 
Related Resources: 
....Online-survey tools besides Survey 
Monkey include Profiler PRO 
(profilerpro.com) and Zoomerang 
(zoomerang.com). Most offer a free 
basic account. 
....Generation YES (genyes.com) is 
a program that encourages students 
to help teachers use technology 
in the classroom. Read about one 
schools successful program in the 
Edutopia.org article California Kids 
Useand TeachDigital Storytelling 
(edutopia.org/economic-stimuluseducation-
technology-california).

Get Off to a Good Start 

THE START OF A NEW SCHOOL YEAR is the perfect time to help your students 
get organized. Spend some time on self-management strategies now, and your investment 
will pay off all year long. 

A wide array of Web tools can help students get better at managing their own learning. 
As you consider which ones will offer the most value for your students, think about the 
kinds of activities your students will take part in this year. Will they need to work with 
multimedia resources? Manage deadlines? Collaborate with team members on various 
projects? Dig into research? Help students manage these various activities with an online 
site that accomplishes multiple tasks. 

The most basic online organizer, appropriate for all grade levels, is a public Web site that 
serves as a teacher-generated information hub. Use it to post resources, assignments, and 
messages for studentsand to keep parents informed, too. Include a calendar for tracking 
upcoming milestones. Add a photo stream or embed a video to open a window into 
classroom activities or showcase student work. 

If you use blogs or other interactive tools for learning, link to them from your public page 
(using password protection as needed for privacy concerns). Share your contact information 
so students or parents can get in touch with questions or comments. For an example of 
one teachers online hub, check out the site 
managed by Georgia teacher Vicki Davis 
(westwood.wikispaces.com). 

To make management more individualized, 
encourage students to set up their own 
personalized pages. Start pages such as 
iGoogle (google.com/ig) can serve 
as their virtual desktops, keeping their 
digital tools in one handy place. Users can 
customize their start pages with the widgets 
they need, such as calendars, notepads, 
or news feeds. (You can preselect these 
add-ons if you want to narrow students 
choices.) Students can access their personal 
start page anytime, from any connected 
computerat home, at school, or in 
a library. 

For a ready-made project-management site, 
check out theThinkQuest (thinkquest.org) 
learning platform. Available at no charge to 
K12 schools around the world, it features 
an online environment where teachers and 
students can collaborate. 

Related Resources: 

....Examples of personalized start pages 
besides iGoogle include Netvibes 
(netvibes.com). 

....Photo-sharing sites include 
Flickr (flickr.com) and 
Picasa (picasa.google.com). 

....ThinkQuest, sponsored by the Oracle 
Education Foundation, offers a project-
management portal for organizing 
collaborative projects, and sponsors an 
international competition for students. 


5 TEN TOP TIPS FOR TEACHING WITH NEW MEDIA EDUTOPIA.ORG 


Think 
Globally 

TURN YOUR CLASSROOM INTO 
A GATEWAY for learning about the 
world. By using online resources and 
new media tools for connecting, you 
will help your students see themselves as 
global citizens. 

One of the fastest ways to expand your 
students horizon is simply to connect your 
class with students who live somewhere else 


in the world. You can find willing partners on 
social-networking sites that cater to educators, such as Classroom 2.0 (classroom20.com) 
and the Global Education Collaborative (globaleducation.ning.com). 


Once you find a partner, host informal get-acquainted videoconferences between 
your classes using Skype (skype.com) and a webcam. Tools like Google Earth 
(earth.google.com) will give students a street-level look at each others neighborhoods. 
With TagGalaxy (taggalaxy.com), you can turn photos from your distant communities 
into a visual representation of the world you share. 

Go deeper with global learning by taking part in a more formal international project. An 
organization called ePals (epals.com) offers a classroom-matching service along with an 
online language translator. Journey North (learner.org/jnorth) connects classrooms 
from the northern and southern hemispheres for inquiry-based projects that deal with 
seasonal migration. Rock Our World (rockourworld.ning.com) is an international 
project in which students on every continent collaborate to compose original music, make 
movies, and meet each other in live videoconferences. 

Collaborative tools can also help your students take advantage of distant experts. Through 
the Global Citizens Corps (globalcitizenscorps.org), an initiative of the Mercy 
Corps (mercycorps.org), students can connect with other youth who share their 
interest in tackling global poverty, or pose questions to field experts working in hot spots 
around the world. 

Related Resources: 

....Cyberschoolbus (cyberschoolbus 
.un.org) is a global education 
project of the United Nations. 
Interactive games, WebQuests 
(webquest.org), and other resources 
promote global citizenship. 

....The Center for Innovation in 
Engineering and Science Education 
(ciese.org/collabprojs.html) 
sponsors global, collaborative projects 
in which students act as citizen 
scientists. Projects involve gathering, 
analyzing, and contributing real data 
from around the world relating to 
everything from household water 
usage to schoolyard habitats. 

....Global Education on a Dime: 
A Low-Cost Way to Connect 
(edutopia.org/global-educationinternational-
exchange), from 
Edutopia.org, offers more ideas. 

6 TEN TOP TIPS FOR TEACHING WITH NEW MEDIA EDUTOPIA.ORG 


7 TEN TOP TIPS FOR TEACHING WITH NEW MEDIA EDUTOPIA.ORG 
TIP #5 Find What You Need 
MAKING YOUR CLASSROOM INTO AN INVITING SPACE for learning 
can be an expensive proposition. Teachers typically invest $500 or more each year on school 
supplies and furnishings. Instead of digging into your own wallet, take advantage of online 
tools and community resources to find what you needfor nothing. 
One of the best-known programs is DonorsChoose.org (donorschoose.org), a national 
initiative that has generated more than $36 million for 90,000-plus school projects since 
2000. Heres how it works: Public school teachers post a specific request on the Web site. 
Citizen philanthropists choose which requests they want to fund. Kids follow up with 
thank-you notes. What gets funded? Everything from musical instruments to picture books 
to classroom technology. 
If you need materials for a specific project, look locally for reusable goods that might 
otherwise wind up in the landfill. For example, SCRAP (www.scrapaction.org)the 
School and Community Reuse Action Projectbased in Portland, Oregon, keeps 50 tons 
of reusable materials out of the waste stream each year and provides a workshop space where 
teachers can share creative reuse ideas. Freecycle (freecycle.org) takes a similar approach. 
The Web site is your first stop for connecting to a Yahoo Group in your community where 
you can browse donation opportunities or post your own requests for free stuff. 
Free classified ads offer another route for finding good stuff. Use your class Web site or 
newsletter, too, to let the community know what you need, too. No harm in asking, right? 
Related Resources: 
....For more ideas about finding free 
supplies, check out How to Get 
Complimentary Teaching Materials 
(edutopia.org/free-schoolsupplies-
fundraising-donation), 
from Edutopia.org. 
....Programs besides DonorsChoose.org 
that match willing donors with teacher 
requests include Supply Our Schools 
(supplyourschools.org) and 
iLoveSchools.com (iloveschools.com).

Make Meaning from 
Word Clouds 

WHETHER THEYRE MASTERING scientific vocabulary, writing poems, or 
analyzing presidential speeches, students are immersed in words. Encourage lively 
conversation about words with the help of tools that turn text into visual displays. 

Wordle (wordle.net) is a free tool that turns a block of text, or simply a list of words, 
into a cloud pattern. Words that are used most frequently are displayed most prominently. 
You can play with layout, font, and colors to change the appearance or highlight certain 
vocabulary. 

Teachers across subject areas and grade levels are finding good uses for this simple-touse 
tool. For example, as a prereading activity, you might use Wordle to highlight key 
vocabulary. Are there unfamiliar words here that students will need to understand? Patterns 
to pay attention to while they are reading? 

Students can create Wordle displays using 
their own writing, too. They will gain new 
insights into word choice. Are they using 
certain words too often? Or is their word 
repetition deliberate? This information can 
lead to more productive writing conferences 
and will help them as they move on to the 
revision stage. 

Some teachers recommend Wordle as a 
tool for reflection. By combining students 
reflective entries into one Wordle display, 
you can see at a glance what students are 
thinking about. Their hot topics can be 
the jumping-off point for a lively classroom 
discussion. 

Related Resources: 

....To hear how teacher Clarence Fischer 
uses Wordle for year-end reflection, 
read this post on his blog, Remote 
Access (remoteaccess.typepad.com 
/remote_access/2008/06/endingthe-
year-with-wordle.html). 

....Terry Freedman offers five good 
reasons for using Wordle in the 
classroom in this post on The 
Educational Technology Site: ICT in 
Education (terry-freedman.org.uk 
/artman/publish/article_1511.php). 


8 TEN TOP TIPS FOR TEACHING WITH NEW MEDIA EDUTOPIA.ORG 


Work Better, Together 

COLLABORATION IS A SKILL your students will need for the future. To help 
them work better together today, try using collaborative workspaces in the classroom. 

Google Docs, part of the Google for Educators toolkit (google.com/educators 
/tools.html), is one example of a secure, online place for managing work in progress. 
Once you help your students set up free accounts, theyll be able to access their spreadsheets, 
documents, and presentations anytime, from any connected computer. 

That means no more misplaced assignments. It also means you can see what students are 
working onand provide timely, formative feedbackwhile their projects are still under 
way. Students can use Google Docs to view and respond to one anothers work in progress. 
Thats useful for collaborative tasks like peer review, sharing notes, or developing a project 
presentation together. 

Wikis offer similar benefits, with the added option of instant publishing. Team members 
can add content (including text, videos, or photos) or edit content that others have added. 
Changes are tracked automatically, which lets a teacher see at a glance whos contributing 
what. Discussion pages allow for more conversation and idea sharing. Privacy controls let 
you determine who has access. 

Encourage your colleagues to use collaborative tools, too, and you can reap the benefits of 
teaming up for project planning and professional development. 

Related Resources: 

....Read how one middle school in the 
Bronx increased collaborationand 
raised student achievementby 
incorporating Google Docs into 
learning and professional development 
(sites.google.com/site/339dottodot 
/about-is-339). 

....Teacher Louise Maine changed her 
teaching practice when she introduced 
students to the power of the wiki for 
creating and sharing content. Read 
more in the Edutopia.org article Wiki 
Woman: How a Web Tool Saved My 
Career (edutopia.org/whats-next2008-
wiki-technology). 

....Wetpaint Wikis in Education 

(wikisineducation.wetpaint.com) 

is a useful starting place for building 
a classroom wiki.The site includes 
examples of wikis for class projects, 
global collaborations, and peer 
professional development. Technical 
advice and classroom insights will 
help you make the most of this powerful 
tool for collaboration. 

9 TEN TOP TIPS FOR TEACHING WITH NEW MEDIA EDUTOPIA.ORG 


EDUTOPIA.ORG 
TIP #8 
10 TEN TOP TIPS FOR TEACHING WITH NEW MEDIA 
Related Resources: 
....Tools for creating a secure back 
channel for the classroom include 
Chatzy (chatzy.com) and Edmodo 
(edmodo.com), which is designed 
especially for educational use. 
CoveritLive (coveritlive.com) is a 
live blogging tool. 
....Veteran edublogger Jeff Utecht shares 
his thinking about back channels 
in this post on The Thinking Stick 
(thethinkingstick.com/the-purposeof-
a-back-channel-necc09). 
....Longtime educator Peter Pappas uses 
a Hollywood movie to get teachers 
thinking about the information flow in 
their classrooms. Read his post on the 
Copy/Paste blog (peterpappas.blogs 
.com/copy_paste/2009/06/classroomdiscussion-
techniques-that-worktry-
this-hollywood-classroomwalkthrough.
html). 
Open a Back Channel 
THINK ABOUT HOW CONVERSATIONS play out in your classroom. Do all 
students take part, or do just a few voices dominate? And how do comments travel? Do 
they go primarily from teacher to student (and back), or do they ping around the room? Are 
there students who never seem to speak up during a whole-class discussion? 
Creating a back channel is one strategy for inviting everyone into the conversation. Think 
of a back channel as a private chat room just for your classroom. Using an instant-messaging 
tool like iChat or Twitter for microblogging (twitter.com), students can pose questions, 
make observations while watching a video or student presentation, or share a dissenting 
viewpoint. To spark conversation, you might pose a prompt that students respond to in 
the back channel. The archived chat offers a valuable artifact that can help you understand 
what your students are thinking. 
A back channel for your classroom quickly disrupts the old model of teacher as expert. Of 
course, creating a collaborative learning environment takes more than technology. Youll 
want to set a high bar for expectations. Students used to text messaging with friends outside 
school will need to think about whats appropriate for in-class messages. Inappropriate 
comments in the back channel could quickly turn into a distraction (like old-fashioned 
note passing). But teachers who are using the back channel for valid academic purposes 
report that the benefits far outweigh the challenges.

Make It 
Visual 
TOOLS FOR SHARING photos, video clips, and other illustrations with students have 
expanded in recent years. From document cameras to projectors to interactive whiteboards, 
these technologies make it easier than ever to use visuals to inspire curiosity, generate 
brainstorming, and engage diverse learners. 

Across grade levels and subject areas, good visuals help students build background 
knowledge as they tackle new concepts. You can use images to set the stage for a story set 
in a remote place or a far-away time. Primary sources from the vast Library of Congress 
(loc.gov/teachers) archives, for instance, help students see the time period for a 
story set during World War I. 

Visuals also show connections between math or science concepts and real life. As they 
watch a video clip that shows the mysterious optical phenomenon known as the green flash, 
for instance, students are primed for a conversation about light waves. Videos that show 
real-life examples of change over time illustrate that algebra really does exist outside the 
textbook. (For great examples, plus teacher discussions, check out, on creative teacher Dan 
Meyers blog, his series of Graphing Stories (blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=213). 

Encourage students to be active viewers of the media you share. Tee up a short video clip 
with a prompt that encourages them to watch for key information. Foster critical thinking 
by asking students to consider whether an image has been manipulated by lighting or 
special effects. Stop videos at key points to encourage more discussion. These strategies will 
build students media-literacy skills along with their understanding of the content. 

Your visual library will grow as you keep an eye open for good illustrations. 

Related Resources: 

....The SITE Screening Room, from the 
Society for Information Technology and 
Teacher Education, provides teacher-
created videos for specific content 
areas (site.aace.org/sitevideo). 

....Teacher Tube (teachertube.com), 
often described as YouTube for 
teachers, includes a growing collection 
of how-to videos. 

....The Futures Channel 
(thefutureschannel.com) offers a 
collection of videos designed to build 
a bridge between scientists and other 
visionaries and todays students. 

....Photo-sharing sites like Flickr 
(flickr.com) allow you to search 
through thousands of images. 
Using the Advanced Search tool, 
look for photos licensed under 
Creative Commons. 

....YouTube offers a vast and ever-growing 
collection of streamed videos. Save 
the clips you wantwithout potentially 
inappropriate commentsby using 
screen-capture software such as 
Keepvid.com (keepvid.com/?url) 
or a browser extension like Video 
DownloadHelper (addons.mozilla 
.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006). 

11 TEN TOP TIPS FOR TEACHING WITH NEW MEDIA EDUTOPIA.ORG 


12 TEN TOP TIPS FOR TEACHING WITH NEW MEDIA EDUTOPIA.ORG 
TIP #10 
Use the Buddy System 
STUDENTS ARENT THE ONLY ONES who benefit from collaboration and 
shared problem solving. Teachers can take advantage of a variety of communication tools 
to share ideas and strategies with colleagues. 
Where do you turn first for brainstorming? The faculty room offers one spot for face-toface 
conversation, but you can expand your options by joining social networks that meet 
your professional interests. 
Classroom 2.0 (www.classroom20.ning.org) appeals to both new users of Web 
2.0 tools and more experienced practitioners. Its a good place to throw out a question 
and get some quick answers. Tapped In (tappedin.org/tappedin) is an online 
community of educators that sponsors regular online forums. Teachers Teaching Teachers 
(teachersteachingteachers.org) produces a weekly webcast, including a back 
channel discussion, that delivers exactly what the name promises. The popular microblogging 
tool Twitter (twitter.com) lets you stay up-to-date with your personal network from a 
mobile device or a connected computer. 
If you are collaborating with colleagues to research a particular topic or develop a project 
together, social-bookmarking tools like Delicious (delicious.com) enable you to 
organize, comment on, and share noteworthy resources. You can see what others are 
bookmarking, too, and learn from the wisdom of the crowd. Diigo (diigo.com) offers 
additional tools for collaboration, such as sticky notes to make comments or highlighting to 
call attention to important passages. Diigo also allows users to set up groups, with additional 
features such as forums, to take conversations even deeper. 
Related Resources: 
....Learn how your colleagues are 
using social-media tools in a set 
of short videos from Edutopia.org 
(edutopia.org/digital-generationnew-
media-classroom-tips).

FOR TEACHING WITH NEW MEDIA 
ABOUT EDUTOPIA 
Edutopia is where The George Lucas Educational 
Foundations vision to highlight what works in 
public education comes to life. Through our Web 
site, magazine, videos, professional-development 
series, and online community, we present a continual 
flow of fresh ideas and inspiring success stories. 
Edutopia provides resources and tools for how to 
integrate creative uses of technology with effective 
teaching and learning. Edutopias audience includes 
educators, parents, school board members, university 
faculty, community-based organizations, and the 
business communityall groups working to create 
better schools for the 21st century. 
JOIN EDUTOPIA! 
WHAT WORKS IN PUBLIC EDUCATION 
Become a member of Edutopia and join a movement 
of like-minded leaders who are working to promote 
change in their own schools and bring the best to the 
world of education. Plus, as a member, youll receive 
valuable resources and benefits, including 
* a one-year subscription to Edutopia magazine. 
* access to our popular webinar series. 
* a copy of The Best of Edutopia: 
Cool Schools: Project Learning. 
* a PDF of the The Best of Edutopia: 
Heart & Soul: Social and Emotional Learning. 
* discounts from Edutopia partners. 
To join Edutopia, simply go online at 
edutopia.org/join 
visit us at edutopia.org 
FOR TEACHING WITH NEW MEDIA 
ABOUT EDUTOPIAEdutopia is where The George Lucas Educational 
Foundations vision to highlight what works in 
public education comes to life. Through our Web 
site, magazine, videos, professional-development 
series, and online community, we present a continual 
flow of fresh ideas and inspiring success stories. 
Edutopia provides resources and tools for how to 
integrate creative uses of technology with effective 
teaching and learning. Edutopias audience includes 
educators, parents, school board members, university 
faculty, community-based organizations, and the 
business communityall groups working to create 
better schools for the 21st century. 
JOIN EDUTOPIA! 
WHAT WORKS IN PUBLIC EDUCATION 
Become a member of Edutopia and join a movement 
of like-minded leaders who are working to promote 
change in their own schools and bring the best to the 
world of education. Plus, as a member, youll receive 
valuable resources and benefits, including 
* a one-year subscription to Edutopia magazine. 
* access to our popular webinar series. 
* a copy of The Best of Edutopia: 
Cool Schools: Project Learning. 
* a PDF of the The Best of Edutopia: 
Heart & Soul: Social and Emotional Learning. 
* discounts from Edutopia partners. 
To join Edutopia, simply go online at 
edutopia.org/join 
visit us at edutopia.org 

